“The essential is invisible to the eye, one cannot see rightly but with the heart.”
THE PIT.
The Pit is an innovative underground structure that physically transforms to support artists’ most ambitious ideas. Hydraulic structures allow for multiple combinations.
Bachoura Court is The Pit’s iconic space, is formed when the movable platforms surface to become one large open public space hosting large-scale performances, installations, and events.
section AA
performance space options diagrams
“If architecture is often compared to cinema, it is because of their shared relation to both the visual world and the material world: the way they magnify, through their psychic image, the dimension of the physical universe: its surface, frame, light, depth.”
strategy of intervention diagram
site plan
site section
reference plan
section BB
north elevation - view from highway
south elevation - street view from bachoura
The most beautiful is not to be present. It is the absence of an element that creates desire and activates the imagination. There is always a pursuit towards completion when a lack is sensed. The imagination takes place in the many trials of the user to fulfill his quest for the absent. The pleasure is granted when architecture fulfils one's expectations. But that is only momentary pleasure. The desire for architecture lies where spatial contrasts merge in the middle of Lightness. Lightness is the place where architecture is dematerialized into a thousand pieces, where elements are dismantled, to be eternally recreated.
FYP Presentation
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Dr. Carole Levesque, my advisor, for her devotion and positive energy. Karim Nader, for the inspiration. Afaf Zurayk, for the passion.
All the professors who contributed in the development of this work : George Arbid, Mona Harb, Abdul Halim Jabr, Karim Najjar, Robert Saliba.
Sahar and Bassem, for the good vibes. Yara, for being there.
and Maissa, for everything.
Thesis Project :: Bachelor of Architecture, American University of Beirut, 2011